That’s why people should just leave social media.
Twitter is really silly, I tried it many years ago and it seems to be a place for politicians, big corporations and influencers to shout at each other? 100% useless for me. Maybe I was using it wrong? 😊
Actually there is a productive way to use even FB and Twitter. That’s to keep up on local “man on the scene” news about neighborhoods you care about. My husband and I have been tracking a lot of the hurricane damage to communities we care about on Twitter and he does on his FB feed.
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Long rant:
My husband was restricted by his employers for years from having any social media accounts. Even I as a spouse was restricted. Legally they can’t restrict me, but there’s an “understanding” that what I do can reflect back on him so even to this day I am really careful. That’s why I never take up suggestions to host my own YT reviews or blog.
Then his company he was in was sold and he finally got freedom to get social media accounts and he did. He almost never posts on them, but he carefully curated his feeds on Twitter and Facebook and he’s now incredibly plugged into what’s going on without receiving or contributing to any drama.
My time on Twitter is spent that way. I occasionally comment or like something but mostly I just read.
Unfortunately my time on FB was so toxic because I was pushed to join by a friend and everyone was talking to me and I didn’t get a chance to just be a silent presence like my husband.
I just posted pictures of what I was doing with the house we had just bought and what was going on with my cats and volunteer work. (I kept the kids out of it). If I posted any humor stuff, I wrote it myself and it was domestic humor about things like my misadventures with appliances.
I think where I first noticed something was fundamentally wrong about the place was when I starting to get a LOT of pressure to share on my FB account news items from friends who were all freaked out about some news story. The news wasn’t necessarily political, but there was a noticeable tone to elicit strong emotions in the narration that could incite political passions. And there was never a source given. Something about that piqued my sense that something was amiss.
So I always vetted these stories and found most were false. And I’d notify the person who was trying to get me to pass this stuff along. “Hey Jim/Jane, I know how upset that story made you. Well I’m happy to let you know that I did a little digging and found out it wasn’t what it seemed. Everyone in the story is fine and it was apparently reported incorrectly in that article you wanted me to share”.
Time after time, countless times a week, I made that kind of message to my friends. And I began to notice instead of being relieved, there was an undertone of irritation to their responses. From “Oh thank you that’s great news, I’ll remove it from my post” to “Uh thanks, um don’t you have better things to do than follow up on this stuff?” to “I think you may be a bit neurotic. Who cares about the truth of THIS article. This stuff happens all the time!”
I realize I must have come across as pedantic or something but these people were so upset by the patently falsified information they were sharing and were getting other people equally worked up. I felt I HAD to stop this torrent of misinformation. I cared about these people and the effect this stuff was having on them.
For awhile my friends also had me posting missing children notices with their heartbroken pleas for the return of the children. On the surface that seems like a wonderful cause. But as is my habit, I checked those out before posting them and most of them were already solved! Some of these notices that they presented as recent were in fact years old! I posted updates instead and that really cheesed off some people I would have thought would be thrilled to know the kids were found safe. 😧
One friend kind of implied there is something weird about me to “compulsively” fact check everything. Honestly I thought all my life that was the default setting for most people, to want facts and accuracy. (Unless they’re hanging out on a rumors site, lol, where it’s okay to expect a mix of rumors and entertainment along with actual news).
Instead, I found people were literally getting high on drama and anger and outrage. If you stand between them and that “hit” then you become persona non grata.
It’s not that I think FB makes people bad, per se. But I think something about that environment magnifies the very minor character flaws we all have and elevates them front and center.
I never really knew everyone’s politics and religions until FB. It turns out I’m neutral and a live and let live person. So my friends projected so much onto me because I could remain friends with people who dared to think differently from them.
I don’t mean to paint myself as virtuous and immune to the pernicious effects of social media. I WAS also too invested in it. It changed me. It made me irritable and withdrawn and depressed. Enough that family had to take me aside and say something to the effect of “This isn’t good for you. You’re on FB too much. You don’t hear conversations around you anymore and all your friends make you mad and depressed now. You look troubled all the time. You care too much what’s going on there.” And so I closed my account. That effectively made me dead to many people. So be it. I wanted to be alive to the people around me.
But others kept with me on emails. And I went out and made new friends. I’m always making new friends that I can actually see in front of me with my own two eyes…not VR glasses! Lol. I do still value online friends. Just…not on Meta. Meta and all that they imply it might become horrify me.
I suppose Twitter would horrify me, too, but I’m on it on a very limited way.
Sure, he has accomplished things. But I bet there are a few good eggs on this forum that have accomplished more. Musk himself has achieved financial success by doing what all the good old boys did in the early 1900s: treat workers poorly, take credit for things you do not do (e.g., "found Tesla"), promote